Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

schliz writes "Judging by the time it took for Egypt to go offline and back online, the Internet Society speculates that the country's connectivity is controlled by a 'series of phone calls', rather than a 'kill switch'. The Government-imposed internet blackout lasted five days, beginning last Friday, and ending on Wednesday."

Oh, you mean it's not a big knife switch mounted near a huge Van de Graaf generator throwing off lightning bolts for theatrical effect?Or maybe just a pushbutton switch on a Cisco router somewhere in San Francisco, that magically shuts the whole thing down?That takes all the fun out of it.

Exactly the whole debate of a "kill switch" is distractive. The real issue is that censorship can and does already happen, and what we should to do about it. There a number of central control points on the Internet, all of them depend on governments and corporations acceptance, funding to function normally. The US is using domains, others use DNS, Egypt now used psysical disconnection, china uses interception of data for sniffing. These are known, and from these it can be safely assumed that many, many m

WTF is the damn difference? What BS is this statement trying to make? Am I supposed to feel better about the pending 'Kill Switch'?

It actually does make a difference, because it means that the Mubarak regime was able to keep each ISP scared enough to intimidate them into doing exactly what they said, even when that meant effectively cutting off their business. The timing of the calls -a little more than 13 minutes total- tells us that there was no hesitation from any of the ISPs. The only exception was the Noor group, who somehow managed to evade this order and remain online for days after the others had disappeared.

And you think it would be different anywhere else in the world? If the US government called Sprint and Comcast and told them "cut the power OR ELSE!" they wouldn't do it?

Think about it: They know exactly that the government can't do that for more than a few days. Else the economy is crippled beyond repair. Facebook, Google and all the other precious data mines would have left the country before you can say "relocation". Oh, they might even keep the workers. What's the problem with them working in the US, co

Yes, given how the Dept of Justice has shown how they will interpret existing laws w.r.t. torture, detaining terrorist suspects, violations of how NSL's must be used, rendition of non-combatants, etc..., there is 100% likelihood that they [as in, the command structure under the President] already have a legal opinion saying they already have the power to order any and/or all parts of the internet shutdown.

Modify physical layout of the connections. Every house, block and street to have multiple links to each other, and proper routing in place. Servers should be distributed and virtual, no addresses. Attempts at censorship would become hard.

Data communications deserve total freedom of expression, just like in-person and voice communication. No central should have any controls.

I have given some thought to this in the past. My current thoughts are towards some sort of shared-storage for blocks, exchanged wirelessly. Everything from PCs to mobile phones could take part then. Want a file? Maybe your neighbour has a piece, or your co-workers, or the person you pass in the street with the software on their mobile phone. A moment of contact, and the pieces are transfered. Latency would be pathetic, but it's an interesting concept for things where time isn't a factor. It might function

As with any other open-source project. Code is cheap, and needs only a few people to write it. So long as it runs off-the-shelf, common, affordable hardware. Might see a lot of interest from pirates, eager to escape transfer quotas.

enable "local peer discovery" in your torrent client... Seriously though, it would be nice to have some open source firmware for wireless devices that had mesh support that could be configured as always on or to turn on discovery when the wan connection dropped.

We're thinking along the same lines, yes. Only I'm thinking local as in physically local - broadcasting a 'I want this bit of data frame' at intervals, and seeing if any devices in the vicinity are running the protocol and have it in storage.

The educated technicians that try to implement this will find their networks shut down in other ways. The average Joe won't use such a network because it's not the default and they don't understand the technology or its implementation. The moment they have trouble with anything it's a reset to vendor-specific settings. The traffic will be shaped because it can be shaped at whim by the ISP; there is no Net Neutrality. So how does this idea succeed?

because only one person needs to find a feed once to any of the desired content and your all able to see it.

simply not possible.

It's actually fairly simple concept. Squid allows remote proxys, so if everyone of these houses had a squid proxy, and you had them all linked as remote proxy to yours, any content (even during a blackout) that any of them had connected to would be available without using the outside link. With wccpv2 which is supportable using most cisco routers, and of course dd-wrt squid can also cache streams, s

The fact that a government functionary can pick up the phone, say, "Shut down your network" and be complied with without the slightest hesitation doesn't say a thing about technology, but it teaches us a lot about the nature of government, and perhaps makes it a little clearer to those of us in the outside world just what the pro-democracy protesters were willing to risk their lives for

+1

This is another example of why I get p1ssed off when people refer to the USA as a "police state" (I'm Canadian). Peopl

This is an example of people not understanding the difference between a metaphor and literal statement. When we talk about the president of the US having his finger on the button of a nuclear arsenal, we don't mean that there is a button somewhere that he would actually push with his finger. In fact, if he chose to launch nuclear missiles, he would make a phone call in which certain protocols would be followed, which would prompt additional phone calls and other communications to be made according to esta

You don't think that the Fed's couldn't do that in the US now?The only good part is there are more then a few ISPs out there, and most of the big ones would ensure they have lawyers involved. I'm sure the situation can, and has, come up where a smaller ISP shuts themselves down because some Federal agent has showed up with some paperwork. I know it's happening to web-hosting companies now...

Anyone that thinks the 'kill switch' would be some jolly-red button like in the end of 'Land of Confusion [youtube.com]' button is j

I had visualized it being a toggle switch with a flip up safety cover (instead of having to break glass). The safety cover would be there to prevent someone like a janitor from accidentally mistaking it for a light switch.

In addition to the "Internet" label, a warning sign for visitors would say something like "Please do not flip this switch to see what it does."

They somehow feel the need to lift the glass and remove the dust from inside. (Since they don't normally read English, the warning label does not help.)

Yes I did work in the lab where the cleaner unplugged the Vax (mainframe) to plug in the (Vax) floor polisher. Sure there was a sign saying "Only for Vax", but just when you make something foolproof, God makes a bigger fool.

That happened to me you insensitive clod! My connection went down for about a day last year and when I checked my ISP's status page when it came back up, it turned out someone at BT had accidentally disconnected them from BT Wholesale while testing a circuit.

Exactly, the law wants to legalize in the US exactly what happened in Egypt. It will be a series of calls still. Currently though, if the President calls Level 3 and says, stop your series of tubes from flowing, Level 3 may or may not do it, and is not obligated to.

The law would give the president the same power here as in Egypt (with regards to the internet that is).

mubarak wielded total power for 30 years, it's not like his system needed a law for those calls. he didn't need any law for anything he did. a sham system for 30 years with disputable beginning and no scripted end.

if there was "need" then obama could do it overnight too, in practical sense though he would need to get everyone else to do what he says to achieve that. he's got direct access to military so _if_ he had good reasons he could cut most of landline internet inside 24 hours(into slowly repairable st

True, but there is a big difference between "Shut down or I will send tanks to your building" and a legal request. It takes a lot more guts to send the military, and tends to provoke the people. When you hide behind the law, it seems more legitimate.

Big problem is that there are many avenues open to go around the Kill Switch, such as private network tunneling into Canada and Latin America, where the information just flows. If the non-USA ISPs don't belong to the KILL Switch party, then a kill switch for the USA will result in a global Kill Switch.
I suppose it would kill all the dot coms.

well, it's cool to think that someone has a big history eraser button that's hardwired to do exactly that.

judging from the chaos in egypt, it wouldn't have been a wonder if large parts would have just gone down simply because technicians etc weren't coming to work because they couldn't reach(and the foreign techs were the first to leave and even those who stayed behind are now being evacuated).

the internet killing didn't do much for the protests though, maybe even escalated them, as people who wanted inform

Well, yes, they are, but really thats a lot more palatable isnt it? Its a lot nicer to think that we can hold the internet being taken down on a single jackass with an itchy trigger finger. Realising that it takes many many people working in concert to intentionally remove the ability of a large segment of the population from communicating, and realising that that is what just happend, is wholly depressing.

Yeah. If Egypt had turned off all their overseas connections, mass 'net disruptions would've occurred (remember when those undersea cables kept getting severed?).

Instead, Egypt just killed routing for packets destined to Egypt - packets transiting through Egypt were unmolested and send on their merry way. Otherwise significant amounts of connectivity would be lost and there would be far more political pressure on Egypt to restore connectivity.

I first noticed the following two phrases "time it took" and "series of phone calls" the first thing that popped in my head was "WTF they still have dial-up"? Which made me do a double take and read part of the article and waste some time.

What it does mean is that the discussion about a kill-switch is moot. In most countries, only a handful of organizations run international backbones. Just about every country could take the net down in such a fashion.

legal "phone" kill-switch = the "internet people" can disobey orders = The police come around, arrest the internet people for disobeying the order and physically pull every cable they can find.
illegal "phone" kill-switch = the "internet people" should disobey orders. = The police come around, beat the internet people, throw them in jail without charge and physically pull every cable they can find.

As in anything dealing with the government. It all boils down to, the government has police with guns, the government has the military with guns. You may have guns, but they have more, and when they surround your home/business with enough guns, you will loose. The government also has laws, if a law doesn't exist for their need, they create a law for that need.

What it does mean is that the discussion about a kill-switch is moot. In most countries, only a handful of organizations run international backbones. Just about every country could take the net down in such a fashion.

In most other countries, even the government would have to get lawyers and judges involved. In most functioning democracies, they wouldn't succeed, except perhaps in wartime.

What it does mean is that the discussion about a kill-switch is moot. In most countries, only a handful of organizations run international backbones. Just about every country could take the net down in such a fashion.

In my country it would go like this:

Head of state dials up a very large backbone provider:HoS: "Hello, will you please turn off your routers?"VLBP: "No."HoS: "Ahem. I don't think I've made myself clear. Turn off your routers."VLBP: "No."HoS: "Listen. Either you switch them off NOW or I will make sure that you will NEVER get any business from the state EVER again and I will make sure you get the FULL audit for the last 50 years of accounting."VLBP: "Ehh... Maybe we could have a little "accident" knocking out

internet connectivity is the least of the worries of the companies with professionals in egypt right now.

the business implications from the internet drop are also minimal compared to the revolt in total, it's not like they could have worked anyways. economically that affect is also quite minimal when contrasted with the fact that cairo is pillaged and looting has been widespread and people are in a general strike, or would be if they had the option of going to work(those with jobs to begin with). "sorry I'm having trouble taking your call because bricks are being thrown at the window".

Fear not: Egypt's government has hired Hill and Knowlton to promote the country "as an outsourcing location." Uh, money well spent, I'm sure now that Egypt is a case study in why not to outsource. (source: the US Foreign Agents Registration Act database, which is searchable online. https://twitter.com/Integrilicious/status/31803089807740928 [twitter.com] )

All of this can change if Mubarak leaves and he country really opens up. Give it a few years: a timezone near Europe, a large English-speaking population, and a lot of

You don't expect that president of Egypt personally was calling providers, do you?He flipped a switch. A big sign "SHUT DOWN INTERNET NOW" lit up in a special room, and well trained officials called ISPs with instruction to turn off that internet thingie. And ISPs said "Sure, no problem! Done!"Killswitch:)

Check out these links for some truly cool pictures. These pictures speak to me and show me the pain and suffering of the Egyptian people.But they are also some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen because they show people fighting to change their lives.

A friend of mine is over in Cairo covering the protests. He's in the main square with the anti-government protesters, so far he's been gassed twice, bricked once and nearly mowed down by a truck, all while on air.

Nope.. all you have to do is remove a small golden statue off of a pedestal. Weight changes and the pedestal drops.. This will in turn cut off the internet but you had better move out of their fast as the large 50 ton stone ball rolls towards you.